Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State did not respond to some of the points I made, so it would be good to get a response to some of those initial points. It is alarming that it seems to be the Government's view that section 46(2)(b), which is the status quo in legislation, is any way acceptable. Clearly, there is a complete planning failure with regard to Gaeltacht communities in what is happening right now. The Government does not seem to recognise that and there is a lack of urgency in this. The Minister of State might tell us when the planning guidelines to Gaeltacht planning authorities regarding their statutory obligations to protect the Irish language in the Gaeltacht will be issued. This is long overdue. It was promised two years ago, except they are going to be draft guidelines in a process which has to happen thereafter. When are we going to see the draft guidelines, when will they be published and why have they been promised for so long and have not materialised? Perhaps the Minister of State will tell us that.

We have no view from the Government yet as to where an Irish language speaker fits in in a Gaeltacht area when it comes the issue of social need. The example was given of physiotherapists, who are needed in Gaeltacht areas, who have a housing need which is not being recognised, and who are living in a van while being surrounded by hundreds of empty holiday homes, which, let us be very clear, is exactly what the planning system is facilitating now in Gaeltacht areas. There are empty holiday homes for most of the year while Gaeltacht speakers, who have a housing need, grew up and want to work in that community with their skills, cannot get their housing needs met. That is a complete and absolute planning failure. That is the planning system creating this through a lack of regulation and the Government’s failure to issue these necessary guidelines and make progress on this. That is what is happening here. It is not the status quoand it is not working.

We need to go back to the first principles of planning on this. Why do we have a planning system? When we brought in a planning system, no one said let us bring in a system to try to break up and destroy Gaeltacht communities. That was never the intention of the planning system but that is exactly what is happening now with what the planning system is facilitating with the lack of regulation in this area. Indeed, as I said before, the Bill, in its regulation of short-term lets, which is the driver resulting in many of these empty holiday homes in these communities, specifically aims to exclude Gaeltacht areas which are not in RPZs and, given the way RPZs are defined, will never be eligible to be an RPZ. It is a statistical impossibility in most cases.

What can be seen in Gaeltacht areas is new housing built over recent years, which is empty for most of the year and provides holiday homes for people who are primarily English language speakers from other parts of the country, from cities and so forth. These are empty homes which the planning system has facilitated but it has not facilitated the housing need of Irish language speakers in the Gaeltacht communities.

I have not heard convincingly from the Government what it plans to do about this. I make the point that this increased pressure in terms of housing is a relatively new phenomenon in Gaeltacht areas which has been driven by the growth in unregulated short-term lets and the holiday homes that have come with it. When the previous Bill was done in 2000, there was not the same issue in terms of pressure on housing in Gaeltacht communities, yet here we are 24 years later with the same text - a couple of lines - and that is it.

On my amendment No. 603, I specifically make the case that language impact statements should be prepared by independent experts. As I said yesterday, we have the situation in some places where language impact statements are required, the builder or architect signs off on it, and it is very much a box-ticking exercise. I am not sure if that fulfils any particular need or if we get any benefit out of that kind of box-ticking exercise.

Where we have language impact statements, as the Minister of State has acknowledged, there is a lack of uniformity in this regard. If this is just a box-ticking exercise, with the builder saying everything is going to be fine or whatever, rather than it being prepared by an independent person with independent expertise in the area of language and how the language will be affected, then I do not see how this will work.

Does the Minister of State have a view on this part of my amendment No. 603, the requirement for a language impact statement to be prepared by an independent expert? Does he think the current situation is working? When are we going to get these draft guidelines and get some movement on this issue? Is this the only thing the Minister of State is proposing to deal with this aspect? As a Bill, is this not meant to be the all-encompassing planning bible people can go to and get guidance on these issues? To use the word the Minister of State used about our amendments, why is section 46(2)(b) being left so vague? I ask this because it does not give detail. All it gives is more vagueness, a vagueness that has failed people terribly in Gaeltacht areas.